Boughs of Holly, Barry, and the Blue Devils

So for my first real addition to this little adventure, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the holidays since we're wrist-deep into them (for reference, I had a fantastic Christmas with lots of good food, good friends and family, and some sweet schwag from Santa Claus).

Now you would think that those would be my lasting memories from this season but the moment that stuck out the most for me was during an exercise class I am taking to get ready for an upcoming vacation to Jamaica where my buddy Brad is getting married (this class is great by the way - it's called Body Pump and, despite how gay the name is, it's a helluva workout - should have my fat behind nearly beach ready in just a few weeks).

It was my first time trying out the class so, as you can imagine, most of my concentration was on figuring out where my next breath was coming from (seriously - I was making my peace with God a few times there) which means I didn't catch much of what the instructor was saying. One little snippet I did catch though was when, during our 40,000th bent over row, she shouted into her microphone, "Let's remember the reason for the season!" Now an allusion to Christ's birth being the reason for celebrating at Christmas may seem like an innocuous enough comment but the interesting part about it was the palatable, uncomfortable silence that fell over the room after she said it. It was like everyone couldn't believe she had actually been so bold as to make a religion-specific comment in public.

Now what blew me away about the whole situation was that, even if everyone involved implied exactly the same socio-politico-religio-and every other "-io" I can't think of right now background (and we did - it was wall to wall tow-headed, blue-eyed yuppies in the class, so I don't fault her for the assumption that we were most likely all Christian in some form or fashion), we have become so conditioned to reject and denounce even the slightest hint of commonality amongst us on the off chance that someone might get offended that a little comment about Jesus' birthday made everyone act like someone just farted in an elevator!

Now this is where I'm going to get political on everyone and discuss our current President, Barack Obama because I feel he is the epitome of this syndrome we all suffer from (and I am ashamed to admit that I fall victim to it as well).

I'm sure given what I've told you about myself it's not a dangerous assumption to think of me as a conservative person, so it may surprise you to know that I actually don't dislike our President. What I dislike is that we now live in a society where, in what should have been the crowning achievement in race relations in this country - the election of an African-American President - we ended up with people taking the opportunity to brand anyone who criticizes him as some sort of racist. Now I am not denying that there are a tremendous amount of backwards thinking people in this world but to have my disagreements with his policies, ideas, etc. smack of racism is just stupid.

Why does Barack Obama have to be a good or bad BLACK President? Can't he just be a good or bad President? Why the qualifier? Is it because people ultimately identify themselves by their indignation at perceived slights? Is it because if they have nothing more to rail against, then people will realize that they really have nothing of any substance to say (Spike Lee and Al Sharpton I'm looking in your direction)? How can we ever hope to really move past the horror of racism if we can't let go of the safety that being upset about racism provides? We have to learn that it's OK to hurt someone's feelings. If we want everyone to be on equal footing then everyone has to be equal fodder for criticism!

Alright, I'll step down from my soapbox now and leave off with a few quick notes about the college basketball season so far. I haven't seen all the top 10 teams play this year but here's what I know based on what I have seen: Texas is the real deal and may not lose a game; Duke is better than a lot of people are giving them credit for (and yes the Kool-Aid does taste terrific thank you very much); Big Ten fans continue to be delusional about the level of talent in their conference (seriously - just give up); and I don't understand why they even play basketball on the West Coast anymore - I haven't seen a strong performance from any Pac-10 team yet and Gonzaga is clearly overrated.

That's all for now folks. Back again when the meds wear off and I have something else to say!